1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile communication system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a resource management system and method for inter-cell interference coordination and channel information feedback in a mobile communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile communication systems have developed to provide subscribers with voice communication services on the move. With the advancements of various technologies, the mobile communications systems have been evolved to support high speed data communication services as well as the voice communication services. However, there is a need of more sophisticated mobile communication systems to mitigate resource shortages and meet the high-speed service requirements of the subscribers.
Long Term Evolution (LTE) is a next generation broadband communication technology developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) in order to meet such requirements. The LTE system is a technology for realizing high-speed packet-based communication at up to 100 Mbps in the downlink.
In order to fulfill the requirements for the LTE system, discussions are being held on various aspects, including a discussion on reducing the number of nodes located in a communication path by simplifying a configuration of the network, and another discussion on a scheme for maximally approximating wireless protocols to wireless channels.
Inter-Cell-Interference-Coordination (ICIC) is a technique introduced in LTE to reduce Inter-Cell Interference (ICI) by sharing information on the currently used data channel resource among the cells, thereby keeping the inter-cell interferences under control of an evolved Node B (eNB). In more detail, the eNB notifies neighbor eNBs of the information on the Resource Block (RB) resource assigned for transmission at relatively high transmission power and the RB resource on which the interference is greater than a predetermined level such that the neighbor eNBs adjust transmission power and perform scheduling decisions on their RB resources based on that information.
Meanwhile, the heterogeneous environment under discussion in LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) is the environment where a plurality pico cells operating with relatively low transmission power are distributed in a macro cell operating with relatively high transmission power. In such an environment, it is difficult to expect the ICIC of the related art to be efficient due to the high interference between base stations. There is therefore a need for an interference control technique working in time domain instead of the frequency domain. Enhanced-ICIC (eICIC) is a time domain interference control technique under discussion.